NEWS: The Ted Bundy Project @ Northern Stage, Newcastle

The show examines the darker side of humanity and our fascination with tragedy

By Nick Malyan
on Friday, May 8th, 2015

In May Northern Stage welcomes a show inspired by one of the most infamous serial killers of all time. The Ted Bundy project is a one man show by Texan writer/actor Greg Wohead, who stumbled across Bundy’s confession tapes online. Once Wohead started listening he couldn’t stop and soon became oddly obsessed, not only with the tapes and all their graphic detail but with the morbid curiosity that compelled him to listen.

The resulting show is partly about Bundy and partly about Wohead but mostly it’s about us – a society where our fascination with the darker side of humanity is fed and encouraged by easy access to lurid and disturbing material online. Why are we drawn to look twice at gory images? Why do we rubberneck at car accidents? And, in the case of Bundy, what is so compelling about serial killers?

The show is listed as ideal for 16+ audiences and once you take a look at the source material you can understand why; Bundy kidnapped, raped and killed more than 30 people in a four year period in the 1970s. His victims were drawn in by his charismatic persona and good looks, the same qualities that led to the media frenzy surrounding Bundy’s trial and execution. Wohead – himself tall, dark and handsome – invites us to join him on a terrible but compelling journey that is part re-enactment and part confession. The question you have to ask yourself is whether, against all your better instincts, you’ll be lured in?